Auctioneer

“ On the other hand, I questioned those gentlemen at the auction sale; and I had the satisfaction of finding them all interested about matters in no wise related to my affair.
Little by little the hall became thronged with interested or merely curious spectators; and, after half an hour’s delay, the auctioneer with his ivory hammer, the clerk with his bundle of memorandum-papers, and the crier, carrying his collection-box fixed to the end of a pole, all took their places on the platform in the most solemn business manner. The attendants ranged themselves at the foot of the desk. ”

“ Courts often say that an auctioneer is solely the agent of the seller of the goods until the sale is effected, and that then he becomes also the agent of the purchaser, for certain purposes; but the marshal or master, in carrying out a decretal order, is more than an auctioneer. ”

“ The driver called to the auctioneer: “Hold on! Here’s a man that wants to bid on that cradle.”
The auctioneer ceased his singsong, and all eyes were turned on the old man and the girl alighting from the stage. No one knew them.
“Now we are all ready,” began the auctioneer again. “The old oak cradle. How much am I offered for the old oak cradle? Fifty cents am I offered for the oak cradle? Some good people have been rocked in this old cradle, and it is good enough yet. Fifty cents. Seventy-five? Yes, the old gentleman who has just arrived bids seventy-five. ”

“ Another disinterested party whispers in the buyer’s ear that the horse will be sold at auction. Sure enough, the animal is led to the auction stables, and care is taken that the buyer sees it passing.
The auctioneer and ringman are posted, and they wait for the sucker. The horseman starts the animal at pretty [34] near his value. The bidding is rapid. The sucker gets in, and under excitement bids two or three times. Perhaps one of the regular eastern shippers bids once, but as a rule, the sucker, the auctioneer, and the scalper are the only bidders. ”

“ This description of auction is not carried on at a fixed place, for the auctioneer, bawling out the price last bid, presses through the crowd of human beings, and runs from place to place until an advance is made, whereupon he is obliged to return to the former bidder, and inform him that his offer has been superseded. It is very remarkable that these criers can always accurately find out the man who has made a bid for the article in question, and thus expressed a wished to become a purchaser, in the immense crowd. ”

“ The auction has its own particular fascinations, and its own habitués and devotees in every city. The chronic attendants should be the most careful and conservative of buyers. But the artful auctioneer soon learns to know them, to recognize them among his clientèle, and to humour their whims, moods, and fancies. ”

“ Come, buyers!" the auctioneer cries when he has an assignment to sell something in the marketplace. Every one is used to the call, and soon a group gathers around. "How much—how much—how much?" the auctioneer starts with his glib sale talk. The articles to be sold may be crates of oranges, bunches of bananas, a crate of chickens, geese, hares, wild fowl, pumpkins, tomatoes, 95 turnips, cornmeal, oats, hay, a pig, cattle, buck (deer) , wildebeeste (gnu) —anything edible for man and beast. Dozens of auctioneers are selling goods in the Johannesburg market at the same time. ”

“ An auctioneer is bound under a penalty of £20 to see that his full name and address are displayed before the commencement of an auction and during its continuance in the place where he conducts it. He is the agent of the vendor only, except in so far that, after he has knocked down a lot to the highest bidder, he has authority to affix the name of the latter to a memorandum of the transaction, so as to render the contract of sale enforceable where written evidence is necessary. ”

“ The selling agents agreed to employ the auctioneer and other persons required to prepare and distribute catalogues and to conduct the sale. They employed an auctioneer to sell the stores and equipment at the United States Engineers' Depot at Slough, and advertised an auction sale to be held at that place on June 24, 1919, and days following. They issued a catalogue purporting to contain a list giving descriptions and quantities of the things to be sold. ”

“ I read of £50 being given at, I think, the Bemrose Sale for a little ugly group, and I felt a desire to find something of this sort, though at a somewhat less fancy price. I poked in many a dusty cupboard, and messed myself up continuously for a time, until one day in an auctioneer’s stock-room I dug out a white coffee pot with a pewter lid which I felt sure was salt glaze. When the auctioneer told me I could have it for two shillings if it was any good to me, I thought how little he knew of his business. It takes two to make a bargain, and he was not the fool. ”

“ Nevertheless it is, and there is not only a wide field for them, but it is a fact that the average merchant can well afford to and will give a good live auctioneer a large percentage for clearing out his odds and ends, as often as once a year, and this can be continued from place to place the year round. ”

“ Should there not be sufficient articles found by the coast-guard to make it worth their while to call in an auctioneer, they hold an auction of their own; but, not being licensed, they cannot run the price of the articles up, they therefore run them down. ”

“ Auctioneers, in large cities, hold their sales at regular periods; sometimes, every day or evening. On extensive sales of merchandise, credits of two, three, four, six, or nine months, are commonly given. In such cases, the auctioneer often gives his own obligations for the goods, and receives in return those of the purchasers.
9. This mode of sale is employed in the disposition of property taken by process of law for the payment of debts, in every part of the world, where the influence of European law has extended. It is used in preference to any other ”

“ But there are other things to be said of buying. The dry-goods jobber frequents the auction-room. If you have never seen a large sale of dry-goods at auction, you have missed one of the remarkable incidents of our day. You are not yet aware of how much an auctioneer and two or three hundred jobbers can do and endure in the short space of three hours. You must know that fifty or a hundred thousand dollars' worth of goods may easily change owners in that time. ”

“ As a private buyer to a sparing and experimental extent I had known that house since 1857, when I was baulked, as I have elsewhere related, in my attempt to obtain an unique copy of the Earl of Surrey’s English version of the Fourth Book of Virgil’s Æneid, which was unique in a second sense—in being the only lot of value among a mass of rubbish.
The auctioneer’s world is classifiable into two sections: Buyers and Sellers. If you do not belong to one of these divisions, the profession scarcely knows where you come in in the economy of nature. ”

“ It is the studied and profitable psychology of the auction that the rubbish must be sold first—pots and bottles and jugs at five-cent bids, and hoes at ten—and after that, the friction of the contest having warmed in the bidders an amiable desire to purchase goods they do not want and cannot use, the auctioneer gradually puts forth the treasures of the day. ”

“ All round the square stood, or sat upon their heels, intending purchasers, for the most part middle-aged elderly men, sleek and fat, in turbans and soft linen, white beyond reproach. Each auctioneer, the prayer over, advanced to the groups of slaves, and led [333] out one or perhaps two or three, and paraded them round and round the square under the eyes of the buyers. At last a bid was made: the auctioneer walked on, pushing the slaves in front of him, and calling out the amount of the bid. ”

“ Book Auctions.—It is at present, I believe, at the discretion of the auctioneer to postpone a sale, when the company is too small to promise a satisfactory result, yet I have known one carried out when not more than two influential bidders were present. In a catalogue of 1681, however, there is a proviso that at least twenty gentlemen must attend. ”

“ Auctioneers, whose annual sales do not exceed ten thousand dollars, shall pay ten dollars for each license; auctioneers, whose annual sales exceed ten thousand dollars, shall pay twenty dollars for each license. Every person shall be deemed an auctioneer within the meaning of this act, whose business it is to offer property for sale to the highest or best bidder. ”

“ Even if the auctioneer promises that he will accept the highest offer, that is, that he will sell to the highest bidder, his promise to accept the highest bid, not being paid for, would not be binding upon him were it not for a statute in some States which, in the sale of goods, would make an auctioneer bound to keep a promise to sell without reserve, that is, to the highest bidder, if he made such a promise. ”

“ An authorized auctioneer is regularly appointed at each place, and a scribe carefully enters the name of the successful bidder, the article he has purchased, and the price. Three months of grace are allowed before such a bill becomes due, but then the buyer must at once pay the sum due or make some arrangement satisfactory to the seller. When natives, whose assets are always limited, have purchased a number of articles, the scribe frequently takes upon himself the responsibility of ordering them not to bid again. ”

“ I often think of Captain Hudson, and wonder, whether my specimen and his are the same.
The auction-thief is only too familiar a feature in the sale-rooms, where portable objects of value are exhibited. At one establishment there is a standing notice, [Pg 255] inviting information as to more or less recent larcenies of property, which it becomes the privilege of the auctioneer to make good at a fair assessment. Books are perhaps the commonest and safest game, as the room is more frequently, prior to the commencement of the sale, left to take care of itself. ”

“ Therefore an auctioneer cannot bid for himself. This rule may not be very applicable in this case, because the auctioneer does not say that he intended to purchase the property for himself.
6. The owner of real estate, put up at auction, may protect himself in one of two ways.
1st. He may fix a minimum or starting point. If no bid is made for this amount, then it is no sale. This mode appears to have been pursued here. The minimum was fixed at $14,500, and this fact was made known to the purchasers at the sale. This fact is highly important. ”

“ THE YOUNG AUCTIONEER.
CHAPTER I.
MATT ATTENDS A SALE.
"Now, ladies and gentlemen, what am I offered for this elegant vase, imported direct from Italy, a most marvelous piece of workmanship, worth every cent of twenty-five dollars? Who will start it at five dollars? Start it at four? Start it at three? At two? At one dollar? What is that—fifty cents? Rather low, lady, but as I said before, these goods must be sold, regardless of the prices obtained. Fifty cents, it is! Fifty—fifty! Who will make it one dollar?" ”

“ And be it further enacted, That no auctioneer shall be authorized, by virtue of his license as such auctioneer, to employ any other person to act as auctioneer in his behalf, except in his own store or warehouse, or in his presence, or by virtue of said license to sell any goods or other property at private sale ”

“ V. THE ARTFUL AND GOLDSTEIN Upon another occasion, in the same town, there was a dealer's sale at an auction mart, and it went off pretty well, though naturally a good many lots remained undisposed of at the close, for on every article there was a reserve price representing the profit to accrue to the vendor, with the auctioneer's usual ten per cent. ”

“ The miners prefer buying everything at auction, and although I imagine the purchasers suffer in the long run by this principle, the “loafers” gain by it; for (supposing you are a loafer) you have only to mix with the crowd of bidders, and take out your clasp-knife; you can then make an excellent meal from{273} the samples exposed to view, presuming always that your constitution will stand a mixture of salt butter, Chinese sugar, pickles, and bad brandy. Joe Bellow was an auctioneer, and certainly he understood his business. ”

“ An auctioneer has authority to accept the bid most favorable to the seller when the sale is made without reserve and to strike down the property to the purchaser. He cannot therefore consistently with his duty to his principal refuse to accept bids, unless the bidder is irresponsible or refuses to comply with the terms of the sale. He is justified in rejecting the bids of insane persons, minors, drunken persons, trustees of the property, and perhaps in some cases of married women.
An auctioneer cannot transfer his duty to another. ”

“ The operator asked me if I would like to send the message, for a little practice. I told him I would, and stepped inside the office to do so. After reading it, I stepped forward and accosted the [Pg 395] stranger with: "What kind of an auctioneer do you wish to employ, sir?"
He replied that he was traveling with a large wagon that cost him fifteen hundred dollars, drove four fine horses, employed two musicians, was selling Yankee Notions, and needed a good man who could sell goods on the down-hill plan, or "Dutch Auction," as some termed it. ”

“ The laws and usages regarding sales at auction, in most of the United States, are similar, in their general principles, to those of Pennsylvania or New-York.
4. A great amount of merchandise, both foreign and domestic, in our principal cities, is sold by auction; and the price which staple commodities there command is generally considered a tolerable criterion of their value at the time. It very frequently happens, however, that articles which are not in steady demand, are sold at a great sacrifice. Auctioneers seldom import goods, nor is it usual for them to own the property which they sell. ”